German Court Upholds Ban Of Original Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Samsung and Apple have been battling it out in a number of courts around the world over various patents relating to each companies products, one of the products that Apple managed to get banned was the original Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

The tablet was banned from sale in Germany, and Samsung released a new model with some design changes, the Galaxy Tab 10.N, although Samsung has been trying to have the original ban overturned.

Now a German court has ruled again on the ban of the original Galaxy Tab 10.1, and sales of the device will remain banned in Germany, although it is unlikely that Apple will be able to seek a similar ban in other countries based on the latest ruling, as Florian Muller from Foss Patents points out.

Apple can’t replicate the German decision in other countries since German unfair competition law is pretty unique. A win based on an EU-wide design right would have been strategically more valuable to Apple. Even though Samsung formally lost its appeal because the preliminary injunction remains in force, it succeeded in defeating Apple’s design right.

The two companies continue to sue each other in a range of different legal cases around the world, and we suspect that this will continue for quite some time.